Auto-Tune
Original author(s) | Dr. Andy Hildebrand |
---|---|
Developer(s) | Antares Audio Technologies |
Initial release | September 19, 1997[1][2] |
Stable release | 10[3]
|
Operating system | Microsoft Windows and macOS |
Type | Pitch correction |
License | Proprietary |
Website | www |
Auto-Tune, or autotune, is an
Auto-Tune was originally intended to disguise or correct off-key inaccuracies, allowing vocal tracks to be perfectly tuned. The 1998 Cher song "Believe" popularized the technique of using Auto-Tune to distort vocals. In 2018, the music critic Simon Reynolds observed that Auto-Tune had "revolutionized popular music", calling its use for effects "the fad that just wouldn't fade. Its use is now more entrenched than ever."[6]
In its role distorting vocals, Auto-Tune operates on different principles from the vocoder or talk box and produces different results.[7]
Function
Auto-Tune is available as a
Auto-Tune has become standard equipment in professional recording studios.[11] Instruments such as the Peavey AT-200 guitar seamlessly use Auto-Tune technology for real-time pitch correction.[12]
Development
Auto-Tune was developed by Andy Hildebrand, a Ph.D. research engineer who specialized in stochastic estimation theory and digital signal processing.[1] Hildebrand conceived the vocal pitch correction technology on the suggestion of a colleague's wife, who had joked that she could benefit from a device to help her sing in tune.[13][14]
Over several months in early 1996, he implemented the algorithm on a custom Macintosh computer and presented the result at the
According to the Auto-Tune patent, the referred implementation detail consists, when processing new samples, of reusing the former autocorrelation bin, and adding the product of the new sample with the older sample corresponding to a lag value, while subtracting the autocorrelation product of the sample that correspondingly got out of window.[5]
Originally, Auto-Tune was designed to discreetly correct imprecise intonations to make music more expressive, with the original patent asserting: "When voices or instruments are out of tune, the emotional qualities of the performance are lost."[6] Auto-Tune was launched in September 1997.[1]
Use in music
Auto-Tune was popularized by Cher's 1998 song "Believe".[15] While Auto-Tune was designed to be used subtly to correct vocal performances, the "Believe" producers used extreme settings to create unnaturally rapid corrections in Cher's vocals, thereby removing portamento, the natural slide between pitches in singing.[16] In an attempt to protect their method, they initially claimed the effect was achieved using a vocoder.[16] It was widely imitated and became known as the "Cher effect".[16]
While Cher's song "Believe" has become famous for achieving the exaggerated Auto-Tune effect, it was not the first popular song to use it. Released two months prior to the album "Believe", the Kid Rock song "Only God Knows Why", taken from his "Devil Without a Cause" album, was the first popular song to utilize the vocoder-like Auto-Tune effect, and also used it to a greater extent.[17] According to Pitchfork, 1999 "Too Much of Heaven" by Italian Europop group Eiffel 65 features "the very first example of rapping through Auto-Tune".[18] The group's member Gabry Ponte stated that their usage of the effect was inspired by Cher's "Believe".[19]
The English rock band Radiohead used Auto-Tune on their 2001 album Amnesiac to create a "nasal, depersonalized sound" and to process speech into melody. According to the Radiohead singer, Thom Yorke, Auto-Tune "desperately tries to search for the music in your speech, and produces notes at random. If you've assigned it a key, you've got music."[20]
In the mid and late 2000s, the
The effect has also become popular in
Reception
Negative
At the
Opponents of the plug-in have argued that Auto-Tune has a negative effect on society's perception and consumption of music. In 2004, The Daily Telegraph music critic Neil McCormick called Auto-Tune a "particularly sinister invention that has been putting extra shine on pop vocals since the 1990s" by taking "a poorly sung note and transpos[ing] it, placing it dead centre of where it was meant to be".[36]
In 2009,
In 2010, the reality TV show
I'm not a perfect note hitter either but I'm not going to cover it up with Auto-Tune. Everybody uses it, too. I once asked a studio guy in Toronto, 'How many people don't use Auto-Tune?' and he said, 'You and Nelly Furtado are the only two people who've never used it in here.' Even though I'm not into Nelly Furtado, it kind of made me respect her. It's cool that she has some integrity.[41]
Used by stars from
Big band singer Michael Bublé criticized Auto-Tune as making everyone sound the same – "like robots" – but admits to using it when he records pop-oriented music.[53]
Ellie Goulding and Ed Sheeran have called for honesty in live shows by joining the "Live Means Live" campaign. "Live Means Live" was launched by songwriter/composer David Mindel. When a band displays the "Live Means Live" logo, the audience knows, "there's no Auto-Tune, nothing that isn't 100 per cent live" in the show, and there are no backing tracks.[54]
In the 2023, multiple creators on the social media platform TikTok were accused of using Auto-Tune in post-production to correct the pitch of singing videos presented to appear as live, casual performances.[55]
Positive
Despite its negative reputation, some critics have argued that Auto-Tune opens up new possibilities in pop music, especially in
Kanye West's 808s & Heartbreak was generally well received by critics, and it similarly used Auto-Tune to represent a fragmented soul, following his mother's death.[61] The album marks a departure from his previous album, Graduation. Describing the album as a breakup album, Rolling Stone music critic Jody Rosen wrote, "Kanye can't really sing in the classic sense, but he's not trying to. T-Pain taught the world that Auto-Tune doesn't just sharpen flat notes: It's a painterly device for enhancing vocal expressiveness and upping the pathos ... Kanye's digitized vocals are the sound of a man so stupefied by grief, he's become less than human."[62]
YouTuber Conor Maynard, who has received criticism for his use of Auto-Tune, defended the audio processor in an interview on the Zach Sang Show in 2019, stating: "It doesn't mean you can't sing ... auto-tune can't make anyone who can't sing sound like they can sing ... it just tightens it up ever so slightly because we're human and we are not perfect, whereas [Auto-Tune] is literally digitally perfect".[63][64]
Impact and parodies
The US TV comedy series Saturday Night Live parodied Auto-Tune using the fictional white rapper Blizzard Man, who sang in a sketch: "Robot voice, robot voice! All the kids love the robot voice!"[65][66]
Satirist "Weird Al" Yankovic poked fun at the overuse of Auto-Tune, while commenting that it seemed here to stay, in a YouTube video commented on by various publications such as Wired.[67]
Starting in 2009, the use of Auto-Tune to create melodies from the audio in video newscasts was popularized by Brooklyn musician Michael Gregory, and later by the band the Gregory Brothers in their series Songify the News. The Gregory Brothers digitally manipulated recorded voices of politicians, news anchors, and political pundits to conform to a melody, making the figures appear to sing.[68][69] The group achieved mainstream success with their "Bed Intruder Song" video, which became the most-watched YouTube video of 2010.[70]
The Simpsons season 12 episode 14, "New Kids on the Blecch", satirizes the use of Auto-Tune.
In 2014, during season 18 of the animated show
See also
- Audio time stretching and pitch scaling
- Melodyne, a similar product
- Overproduction (music)
- Robotic voice effects
References
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External links
- Ryan Dombal (April 10, 2006). "Interview: Neko Case". Pitchfork. Archived from the original on May 1, 2007. – artistic integrity and Auto-Tune
- CBC Radio One Q: The Podcast for Thursday June 25, 2009 MP3 – NPR's Tom Moon on the takeover of the Auto-Tune.
- "Auto-Tune", PBS TV, June 30, 2009
- Andy Hildebrand Interview at NAMM Oral History Collection (2012)